Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/134

 Webb. The youngest boy, Mr. J. T. Knight, unmarried, is the present owner of Laverick’s Bay property, where he resides.

Joseph Rix, Mrs. Rix, Betsy (afterwards Mrs. Geo. Mason). Mr. Rix was sawing timber in Pigeon Bay in 1849. He afterwards went to Okain’s Bay some time in the ’fifties. His daughter married Mr. George Mason.

Charles Barrington Robinson, 1840-50, Mr. C. B. Robinson’s name is well-known in connection with the earliest records of the Akaroa Settlement, he having been actively and intimately associated with that historic event. In 1840 there was an attempt made to form a French colony in Akaroa, which had its beginning at a still earlier date, and resulted in the arrival of a company of French, and a few German, Portuguese, and Italian emigrants to New Zealand in that year. In 1835 an adventurous Frenchman named Captain L’Angloise visited Akaroa while on a whaling cruise in the South Seas, and, being much charmed with the beauty of the harbour, he attempted to purchase a large tract of land at a nominal price. The transaction was not bona fide, however, no legal document having been executed, and only